Just A Couple of Ponds: Adam
by queen-of-whump
Summary: Part 1 of my "Just A Couple of Ponds" series, but it can stand on its own. Amy's bad day is nothing compared to her husband's. Not knowing what else to do, Amy calls her Raggedy Man to the rescue... Amy and Rory ONESHOT...please read and rate! Rated T for brief mention of alcohol and death description. I don't own Doctor Who or the BBC. PM ME IF YOU HAVE A STORY IDEA FOR RORYAMY!


Amy Pond was poking her garden with a stick.

She had gotten home from work in a sour mood, because the story she'd wanted had been given to one of the senior journalists. Twenty minutes later, she'd found herself in the middle of the little vegetable garden in the back yard, wearing one of Rory's old shirts and a trowel in hand. Something about the garden had been soothing to her ever since she'd met the Doctor in one.

She'd stopped herself from doing any serious work, since her anger might just destroy the carrots; they were doing infinitely better than the last crop she and her husband had tried to raise. Instead, she resorted to removing minor weeds and just turning soil over.

That was when she found it.

The trowel bumped against something lumpy and dark in the back corner. She squinted at it. Whatever it was, it was very dead. She could smell it.

Of course, being a Pond, her first instinct was to poke it with a stick that she found laying alongside the fence. It seemed to be a smallish animal, possibly a badger.

"What are you doing?" her husband's voice came from behind her.

"Poking a dead thing with a stick. Want to help?"

"They gave the missing yacht bit to Edward Long, didn't they?" he said.

"Oh, shut up." she snapped irritably.

He knelt next to her and shoved at the body with her trowel.

"Looks like a badger."

"That's what I thought." she replied, sighing. "He smells. Do you smell it?"

"Yeah. Lovely. But, Amy, as fragrant as he smells, I don't think we want him in the yard anymore. Better give him a good funeral in the dumpster, yeah?"

"Sounds wonderful."

"Why don't you tidy up a bit, and I'll take this guy." Rory rose to his feet, brushed off his jeans, and offered a hand to his wife.

"What kind of tidy up?" she asked teasingly.

"The we're-going-out kind." he smiled.

"Ooh! Where?"

"Surprise." he touched her nose and winked. "So you better hurry about it. I'm going to fetch a bag for our friend."

The dinner was lovely, but Amy was even more thrilled by the route they took home. Instead of getting a taxi, they walked through the park, which had been lit with little candles for the month of June.

"So, how was your day?" Amy asked Rory, leaning her head on his shoulder as he squeezed her hand.

He was silent for a long moment.

"Rory, what is it?"

She looked up at his face and saw the tears in his eyes reflecting the candlelight.

"Rory!" She squeezed his arm and stopped walking. "What is it? What happened?"

She stroked his hair, peering anxiously at his face.

"We lost Adam this afternoon." he said flatly.

Amy's heart sank, and she wrapped her arms around the nurse's neck as he started sobbing.

Adam was a patient that Rory had been caring for for over six months and become quite close to. He'd come in as an emergency patient with a sudden attack that had revealed itself as cancer, and Rory had managed to keep the older man in his rounds. Everyone had known rather early on that the cancer was terminal, and Rory had spent hours a week keeping Adam cheerful with his company. Amy had met him a couple times, and had been touched by Rory's devotedness to the patient.

"Rory." she whispered, holding him close and feeling the hot tears well up in her eyes.

She really hated herself sometimes. She had been so upset about the stupid little story, and her husband had lost a friend.

"I'm so so sorry."

He just clung to her more tightly, his skinny shoulders shaking with sobs.

That night, neither of them really slept. Amy had tucked Rory into bed and gone to have a cup of tea, but when she'd come to bed he was still wide awake, turned on his side with his eyes focused, unseeing, on the gray, swirling pattern of the wallpaper. He sat up when she came in, roughly rubbing his face with the edge of the bed comforter. She climbed into bed with him and pulled him to her, closing her eyes and kissing his forehead as he leaned against her.

"He just cried until he was dead." Rory said, his tone hallow and raw.

Amy bit her lip and stared up at the ceiling. She didn't want to hear this, but she knew that the centurion needed to get it out.

"I came in this morning and they'd taken him off of support, and he was just laying there panting and crying." Rory stopped talking and sucked in a deep breath of air.

"Was Lissie there?"

Adam's ex-wife had visited the ailing man very few times over the time he'd been in the hospital

"No. I called her, but she told me that she wanted to remember him the way he'd been." he squeezed Amy's arm. "She was really drunk."

Rory finally fell asleep, still wrapped in his wife's arms. When he'd been asleep for a while, Amy untangled herself from him and tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen, where his cell phone was plugged in on the table. Without hesitating, she dialed the Doctor's number and waited for the machine to pick up, he himself almost never did.

This time he did, though.

"Hello, Pond."

It just took those two words to make her burst into tears.

The next thing she knew, the gentle whirring of the TARDIS filled the room, and she was in the big, tweed-dressed arms.

"Amy, what's wrong?" he stroked her hair gently. "Where's Rory?"

Through tears, Amy told him everything. He nodded.

"But why did you call me? You know I can't go back on this man's personal time line. And you know that even if I could, the TARDIS still hasn't found a cure for cancer."

"Rory needs to be distracted. He needs to get away from here, and away from the memories."

The Doctor nodded. "I can't imagine. Is he sleeping right now?"

"Not anymore." Rory's voice said from the stairs.

"Rory! Hi!" The Doctor said, twisting his fingers awkwardly around each other. "Fancy a day out?"

"Yeah, actually." Rory said. "I'm ready to get out of here."


End file.
